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Published on: September 30, 2020
[Efficacy of an occupational group therapy in degenerative dementias: a controlled study in the nursing home setting]
Sabine Pickel1, Elmar Grässel, Katharina Luttenberger
1Bereich Medizinische Psychologie und Medizinische Soziologie der Psychiatrischen Universitätsklinik Erlangen. sabine.pickel@gmail.com
Objective:
We investigated the effectiveness of an occupational group therapy, tailored to dementia patients, performed regularly 6 days a week, on everyday-practical capabilities and dementia-related behavior.
Methods:
Fifty-six dementia patients in one nursing home in Northern Bavaria (Germany) were observed for 6 months: 28 patients in a therapy group and 28 patients in a matched controlled group. Performance tests, ADAS-kog and E-ADL-Test, were carried out blinded. Data were analyzed using adjusted mean differences for baseline and 6-months follow-up data and multiple regression analysis.
Results:
The therapy leads to stabilization of everyday-practical capabilities (adjusted mean difference 4.0; 95 % CI 1.6-6.3; p = 0.002) and of dementia-related behavior (adjusted mean difference -6.8; 95 % CI -11.8--1.8; p = 0.009) compared to deterioration in the control group who received treatment as usual. The effect power (Cohen d) on everyday-practical capabilities is |0.83|. The therapy had no significant effect on cognitive capacity.
Conclusions:
An occupational therapy program directed particularly to everyday-practical activities cannot slow the progression of all dementia-related symptoms, but has a main target effect on everyday-practical capabilities.
